For all of the well-deserved pregame hype about the Twins facing Pittsburgh ace Paul Skenes on Friday, manager Rocco Baldelli admitted that in meeting with his hitters, they didn’t burn incense, light candles or take any other extreme measures in order to coax a hit or two against the dominant righty.
The challenge of facing Skenes — who earlier this month became the first Pirate ever selected to the All-Star Game in each of his first two major league seasons — is the same for every player that steps into the batters box.
“I can’t tell you they’re that much different,” Baldelli said of the pregame hitters meeting prior to facing Skenes. “If there was some secret plan that was reasonably obvious to anyone on Earth, we would probably know about it, and any team…every team would probably be focusing on that. There is no overriding plan that you know has a high level of success. You have to go in there and win a lot of individual at-bats and individual pitches.”
Still, with Twins All-Star right-hander Joe Ryan headed to the mound to start the game and a big crowd on hand, Baldelli acknowledged that these kinds of head-to-head matchups, on a warm summer night, with Minnesota battling for a wild card spot, are the type of games that bring fans out to the park or have them tuning into the TV broadcast.
“Those types of days can be an enjoyable spectacle. They’re the types of matchups that get people talking a lot, they get people excited, they get people in this building and in this clubhouse excited, and hopefully a lot of our fans at home are going to enjoy watching some good baseball and very well-pitched games,” he said. “So, I think that’s what it’s about. And probably one of the more you know…it doesn’t happen every day. Like, you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities that you have to watch great players out there. And when you see two pitchers like this matchup, it should be must-see TV.”
Confidence boost from Cubs series
The Twins fell short of a sweep in the three-game series with Chicago earlier in the week. But with the Cubs coming to Minnesota on an offensive tear, holding the visitors to one run in the series opener, and two runs in the second game, was chalked up as a confidence booster for the defense and pitching staff.
With a huge contingent of Cubs fans at Target Field for all three games, keeping the visiting fans mostly quiet was a nice bonus.
“That’s a really good team with a really tough lineup, and to take two of three from them just shows how good our team can be when we play to our potential,” said Twins reliever Danny Coulombe, who pitched 2/3 of an inning in each of the wins. “It was kind of crazy to see so much blue. Obviously the Cubs travel great, but it was a really fun week.”
Metrodome memories for McCutchen
While he has spent the bulk of his career in the National League and has not been a rival of the Twins, Pirates slugger Andrew McCutchen has some good memories of summer trips to Minnesota. In 2014, when the All-Star Game was at Target Field, he represented Pittsburgh, and he came into Friday’s game with a dozen career home runs in Minneapolis.
McCutchen’s first career home run was hit on June 17, 2009, off Twins ace Francisco Liriano at the Metrodome, in the final season the Twins played indoor baseball.
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